Dad Is Deported From The US Despite Arriving As A 10-Year-Old

A Mexican dad who was brought to the US almost 30 years ago as a child has been deported after his family lost a battle to keep him in the country.

Thirty-nine-year-old Jorge Garcia, of Detroit, Michigan, was forced to give his wife Cindy and their two children a tearful goodbye on Monday as he started his journey back to Mexico from Detroit Metro airport.

Jorge's wife Cindy has slammed President Donald Trump for 'tearing her family apart' after Jorge was told he would have to leave in November last year due to existing immigrant laws.

PA

"You have destroyed my life. There's nothing I can do about it," Cindy said as the Garcia family spent their last few minutes together.

"We get a new president and this is what he does, tears my family apart," she added. "I hope everybody is happy."

Devastatingly, Jorge was just too old to qualify for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival), an Obama-era immigration policy which allowed immigrants who entered the country as children to stay in the country.

Starting in 2012, DACA allowed anyone under the age of 31 on 15 June 2012 to ask for their deportation to be deferred. Garcia was 32. The Trump administration scrapped the policy in September last year.

Jorge's family had spent years trying to find a way to allow him to stay in the US after he was brought to the country by a relative at the age of 10. Until his deportation he worked as a gardener and had no criminal record.

The family began trying to ensure Jorge could stay as a legal resident in 2005. However, in the process they drew the attention of US immigration authorities who told Jorge to expect deportation in 2009.

The family were given several stays to give them chance to work out a permanent solution, only for agents to tell the dad-of-two last winter he had to leave.

Jorge has now had to leave behind his wife, a 15-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son, all of whom are American citizens.

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Jorge's plight has attracted the support of protesters, who joined the Garcias at the airport on Monday with signs reading 'Stop separating families'.

According to Cindy, Jorge will now be subject to a 10-year ban from entering the US, while the only relative he still has in Mexico is his aunt.

All in all, it looks like a pretty desperate situation. Hopefully Jorge will be reunited with his family again soon.

Topics: News, US News, Mexico, Immigration, Politics

Chris Ogden

Chris Ogden is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from the University of East Anglia with degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing before completing his NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism. Chris has previously written for the independent culture magazine The Skinny, among other publications.

@TheThumbCompass